


Actual Natural Disaster Julian Bashir

by gogollescent, Hammie



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:27:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/pseuds/gogollescent, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hammie/pseuds/Hammie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bashir becomes aware that Garak's feelings for him may be more than friendly. He thinks that he can use this to the Federation's advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a series of short one-scene chapters which eventually make up an entire fic. More characters will turn up in various capacities as we go on. We are a bit sorry, but probably not as sorry as we ought to be.

"Garak," Bashir announced, in a voice that managed to be as triumphant as it was conspiratorial, "has _feelings_ for me."

The emphasis he put on the word 'feelings'—combined with the sharp flash of teeth as he said it—put Kira in mind of someone brandishing a weapon they didn't know how to use. She stepped back, thinking that might put her out of reach. Unfortunately, Bashir's enthusiasm was a long-range tool, and also her hasty retreat had nearly tripped her into an open crate.

She tried to resign herself to being present for the impending conversation, but proved unable to summon a facial expression that wasn't a member of the grimace family.

"Doctor," she said, shifting her weight and casting a longing glance towards the door, "may I ask why, exactly, you're telling me this?"

"Don't you see?" Bashir exclaimed, making a shape in the air with his hands which he clearly believed was communicative.  
He looked at Kira's face, upon which he must have seen some very clear evidence that she did not, in fact, see, because he hastily continued—in a tone which he lowered right along with his eyelids— "We can use this to our advantage."

Kira could feel her grimace transforming into the sort of incredulous smile she usually wore around Gul Dukat. "Our advantage."

"Yes!" Bashir said, making another expansive gesture around the cargo bay. "What better way to find out exactly what Garak knows than to have one of our officers,"—here he gestured, unnecessarily, to himself—"get into his good graces?"

"Well, they're certainly well-tailored graces," Kira replied, rubbing her temple. There was a pause as Bashir processed this statement which was then broken by his uncomfortable laughter.

"Major, please, it's not going to go that far," he said dismissively.

"How do you know how far it's going to have to go for you to get your information?" Kira asked. "What information are you even after? Have you given this any thought at all?"

“Well,” Bashir said, “well, no, not as such, ah, not yet, anyway, but—”

"Look, Doctor. I don't mean to sound like I don't have faith in you, but don't you think it might be better to leave this kind of thing to Starfleet Intelligence?" Kira said, attempting gentleness. 

"Garak doesn't have a crush on Starfleet Intelligence!" Bashir burst out, flinging his arms and his lips outward in an explosive bodily pout.

"You know what," Kira said carefully, "I think your... mission will go a lot better without my help. No, hear me out! The less people who know about your plans, the less of a chance there is of one of us giving away information," she paused and delicately lowered her voice, "should we be captured."

Bashir's eyes widened to an extent she would not have thought possible. "You're right," he said in a harsh whisper, taking a step back and glancing around the cargo bay with fresh suspicion. "You're _right_ , of course, major, I knew you'd have good advice for me. After all, you have experience with sabotage, don't you?" He offered her a ludicrous wink and tapped the side of his nose. 

"Er. Yes," Kira said. "Lots."

"I was never here!" Bashir warbled, running into a crate on his way out. Kira found herself fervently wishing that that were really the case.


	2. Chapter 2

When Garak was a young man and still anxious to prove that a sensitive nature, attention to detail, and an unwillingness to get blood on the carpets were all assets rather than liabilities, he'd carried out a mission on the Trill homeworld, far from Cardassia but not from Cardassian interests. His visit had been scheduled to coincide with a Klingon ambassador's and they had ended up taking the same transcontinental train, a rustic tourist trap that required fully eight hours to run from pole to pole, but which did promise a beautiful blur of low-speed scenery for its robbed passengers. At the time he was less inured to alien vistas than he would through exile become, and he spent most of the journey indulging in surreptitious greed: watching, that was, as blue forests and milk-pale skies gave way to ravines like tongueless mouths beneath the rail.

The precipitous drops that the track ran parallel to eventually chased him away from his seat by the window, and the ambassador died a little sooner than he otherwise might have, murdered as much by Garak's impatient queasiness as the less rigorous specifications of the assignment. It was a satisfactory conclusion to his excursion, and he'd returned home not long after. But that nausea—the sudden awareness of unsuspected depth—was the same objectionable feeling that overtook Garak decades later, when in the middle of an otherwise unexceptional meal at the Replimat Bashir reached across the table and grabbed hold of his hand.

Assassination was not an option at his disposal. Garak settled for staring at the audacious extremity in the vague hope that it would disappear. He could see it now: a spurting stump where the wrist had been, and Bashir, surprised into shutting up about—what was he talking about?

“Garak,” said Bashir, as if no one's palm were presently being fondled, “I've been meaning to discuss something with you.” A beat. “These lunches of ours always seem so formal, so... planned.”

“That would be because they are planned,” said Garak, “inasmuch as weekly recurrence can be called forethoughtful. I realize humans despise proper organization, doctor, but formality seems to me to be a much underrated—”

“So I'd like to invite you to dinner,” said Bashir, ignoring him totally. He did have some underutilized talents: blithe oblivion was not one. “My quarters, tonight, say... 1900?”

“This will be a _spontaneous_ dinner?” said Garak. He was starting to sound a little distracted, even to himself, but then, he couldn't quite remember how they had gotten here from Proust—skin-to-skin contact appeared to have wiped at least ten seconds' worth of the preceding memories—and he was increasingly certain he had missed an important step. Say, off the edge of one of Trill's Tenaran ice cliffs.

“More spontaneous than lunch,” said Bashir with a smile. “I'll manage the food, shall I? And you can supply the drinks.”

“Not worried I'll drug you into a state of suggestibility and unearth Federation secrets, doctor?” said Garak. Something was very wrong. If he could just have a moment to think this through...

Bashir laughed unconvincingly and patted him on the hand, which at least was an improvement over grasping it. He leaned back in his chair. “You wouldn't do that,” he said. “That would be far too devious for my friend, the harmless tailor.” Then he winked.

Garak had first chosen to cultivate Bashir's acquaintance because he was the sole member of Sisko's staff who lacked both pre-existing personal connections aboard the station and well-founded prejudices against the Cardassian Union. It was remarkable that such an individual existed at all, let alone so high in DS9's chain of command, and it would have been too much to hope for multiple; but Garak did sometimes wonder whether he shouldn't have thrown himself to, say, the spotted mercies of Lieutenant Dax instead. She had already had a surplus of faintly criminal friends, but that wasn’t necessarily a disadvantage: surely a sometime torturer and spy could have found a place in the slug-addled heart that also made room for smugglers, hustlers, prostitutes, and Quark. More importantly, he was positive that she would never have winked at him with Bashir's air of earnest facial muscularity. Tectonic plates had reconfigured to produce that wink. Garak didn't like it, and worse, he didn't trust it. It made him feel acutely exposed.

“I'm glad to see you're taking a less abstracted approach to reality,” he said aloud, recovering as best he could. “Really, doctor, your flights of fantasy in these past few months—they’ve concerned me deeply.”

“Is that a yes?” said Bashir.


End file.
